I visited the Gardens By The Bay yesterday and the experience took my breath away. Visiting the Cloud Forest and the Flower Domes reinforced why I am writing the Rider trilogy.

The tale started with a brain-flash and grew into a SFF tale set on a desert planet, with a girl who yearns to be a Rider. The desert world is hostile and the colonists struggle to survive on the planet. The Agri-seer Corps signify the management of the planet’s resources, most importantly conserving Earth species and adapting to new ones. I have often imagined how the Agri-seer Corps City would look like and yesterday’s trip crystallized it:

This was what greeted me when I entered the Cloud Forest. A thundering waterfall. The mist of water caressed my face and I went: “This is what the Agri-seer Corps City looks like!”

The Flower Dome stunned me further:

The experience refreshed and inspired me further. I wrote Rider for a reason. Sustaining a future is one important aspect. It’s not a matter of terra-forming a foreign planet for colonization, but an understanding of a planet’s ecosystems and environments. As I am writing now, there are forest fires, pollution and further degradation happening on Earth. Perhaps, the colonists left old Earth, because of its state… and that is a sobering thought to mull over. Li’Fang and her compatriots have to cope with a changing planet too as it reacts to the colonization. What can they do?